A deserted feeling in working-class America By Harold Meyerson (YOUR UNION AT WORK)

[Demeter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/31/AR2010083104880.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

Of all the groups in the Democratic orbit, it is labor that has assumed the most demanding role in this year's midterm elections: keeping the white working class from flooding into the Republican column.

"When our canvassers call on our members on their doorsteps, they hear Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly in the background," says Dan Heck, who heads a massive union-sponsored program in Ohio devoted to persuading its members to vote this November for candidates who would mightily displease Beck and O'Reilly.

Heck's organization, Working America, was created by the national AFL-CIO in 2004 to reach out to white, working-class voters in key swing states such as Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. "Right now, we talk to 25,000 people every week," says Karen Nussbaum, the program's national director, "and we'll knock on a million doors in the next two months. The people we talk to are the volatile 40 percent in the middle of the electorate. They're angry, and they're not sure who to blame or what to do about it."

"A number of these folks are evangelicals, some are conservatives," says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. "We still manage to find common ground with them, talking about ending tax breaks for the rich and penalizing companies that offshore jobs." Poll after poll makes clear that it is working-class whites who have most decisively turned away from President Obama. With only 7 percent of the private sector unionized, the AFL-CIO now reaches out beyond its members to preach the gospel of economic progressivism -- public investment in infrastructure, reviving manufacturing, clipping Wall Street's wings -- to swing voters who, 30 or 40 years ago, would have been card-carrying union members.

...................

Nor has Obama done what Trumka and his organization's canvassers do on a daily basis: validate Main Street America's anger. That doesn't mean that Obama needs to sound angry himself, God (and David Axelrod) forbid. But labor is on to something that seems to have eluded the White House: If Obama and the Democrats are to have a fighting chance against Beck, O'Reilly and the Republicans, they need to acknowledge how our power elites have betrayed Main Street America, and how Main Street America is right to be enraged. Nearly 80 years ago, Franklin Roosevelt did just that -- railing at the "money changers" of Wall Street who had defiled the nation, even as he crafted programs that created jobs and regulated finance. The Becks and O'Reillys of his day -- chiefly, radio demagogue Father Coughlin -- railed at the New Deal's secularists and Jews subverting the nation, but Roosevelt, with an ascendant labor movement going door to door for him, beat them back.

[AnneD]

1. Most of us feel....

that Obama and the Dem leaders have stabbed us in the back and think we are too stupid to notice. Duncan and the berating of teachers, Geitner and the rape of small investors, Bernanke and the bail out of the financial industry. Gee I can't wait to see what other "reforms" are in store for us.

Well, just try to win the elections with out the 'loony left'. Most folks I know are switching and those that can't stomach the thought of voting for the right will be staying home. He should be listening to those that brought him to the dance. We voted for change and we are still waiting to see it. I voted for a DEM and got a DINO.

[ixion]

2. They think we're too stupid to notice, or they just don't really care if we notice or not

because the message from the DLC goes something like "Shut up and vote for us or the GOP will win."

[CrispyQ]

3. That's the message on DU too.

This was John Kerry's comment regarding the climate bill:

"We believe we have compromised significantly, and we're prepared to compromise further."

It could just as easily have been stated regarding the health insurance bill & the bankers bill.

It is the battle cry of our party.

[emilyg]

5. +1

[BridgeTheGap]

4. The large influx of corporate money at the Federal level have significantly undercut

the Democrats traditional role as the defender of labor. Yes, there are still those elected Dems whom labor can count on. But, as the passage of GATT and NAFTA demonstrated in the 90s and the failure (so far) of pushing the "Employee Free Choice Act" through a Democratic Congress, there are far too many Dems who have abandoned labor to the foibles of the corporate elite.

[Jefferson23]

6. K&R

[pscot]

7. Working class people are just sore

because they didn't get a pony.:banghead:

[AnneD]

8. To hell with the pony....

I'd settle for a little KY jelly. Thank you very much.

[Scruffy1]

9. Me too

Watching whole neighborhoods destroyed while the banksters dine at the public trough. The theft of our national wealth by the parties in power. I think the stupid teabaggers are just part of the plan to get the ones with half a brain to hold their nose and vote democratic.
The health insurance bill sucks.
There has been nothing for struggling homeowners except empty promises.
The job market sucks and the administration is playing trickle down. Feels like piss to me.
We are pulling out of Iraq to squander more in Afghanistan.
I didn't expect much but this is ridiculous.